


Jedha, before.

by astralelegies



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Assassination: the family business, Best Friends, Canon Compliant, Friendship/Love, Gen, Implied Relationships, Jedha, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:02:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9148021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralelegies/pseuds/astralelegies
Summary: Times like these, he thinks,the Force can’t be trusted. They'll have to rely on each other instead.Baze and Chirrut in the Holy City as one war ends and another begins.





	

In those days NiJedha sparkles with sunlight, glinting off the domed towers brushed over with gilt or kept trapped in the gaudy religious ornaments sold on every street corner to passing pilgrims. In those days, the Holy City is glorious. 

Sometimes, in the mornings, Baze can hear the call to prayer all the way through the window of the seventh-story room he shares with his younger sister. She complains about the noise and puts the pillow over her head, but Baze can’t help listening to the stream of strange-sounding words, the low chant reverberating inside him. He’s too far away to ever hear what the monks are saying. 

“Ignore them,” his mother will tell him, whenever she catches him staring off in the direction of that tall dark structure on the horizon. She has been skeptical of the faith for as long as he can remember, even if she tries to hide it. Like the robes she keeps folded in a trunk in her tiny bedroom that Baze and his sister stumbled across one day, old and moth-eaten and smelling distinctly of dust, though everything does here. 

It has always just been the three of them; Baze, his sister, his mother. Sometimes just two, if his mother is off-world on another job. When that happens, Baze takes whatever work he can find at the marketplace while his sister keeps careful record of the money that has been left for them. It is usually a week, seldom more than a month, that they are on their own, and when their mother returns it is the only time she will ever allow them to ask about her business. 

He is sixteen the first time he meets Chirrut Îmwe. 

He’s in the marketplace, one farther from home this time, practically in the Temple’s backyard, searching for work. He was wary, initially, of coming so close to the monks’ quarters— _what if they try to recruit me_ —but he’s exhausted most of his other options and hates to admit that he’s getting desperate. 

Baze only notices the blind boy in the traditional robes because he’s walking so much slower than the crush of people around him. And that in itself wouldn’t be remarkable to some— _he is blind_ , they would argue, _it’s only natural_ —but what catches his attention is not the speed but the deliberateness of the motion. Hell, the kid can’t be any older than Baze himself, but he carries his head with a subtle tilt Baze has only ever seen in holographic pictures of old royalty. People usually prefer to keep their heads down in Jedha, bowed in deference to the cold or to ancient ideals of humility.

He realizes he’s been staring when the boy stops directly across from him. _How did he—_

“Even those of us who can’t see know when we’re being watched.” 

“I’m sorry,” Baze blurts, and it’s odd because he doesn’t often apologize. The words taste strange on his tongue. 

“Have you ever considered joining the Temple? I can tell by your voice that you are young yet.” 

“Maybe,” says Baze. 

“Come with me,” says the boy. 

And perhaps this is exactly what he was afraid of, but Baze follows him without a word.

\----

In all his life he’s never been inside the Temple of the Whills. It strikes him as unusual, because in all his life he’s never left Jedha City, but he supposes his mother was always reluctant to expose him to the religion. (“Then why are we living in the Holy City?” he would ask, and her lips would become a thin line and she’d say nothing more. It was the same expression she would get whenever Baze brought up his father or her line of work. He has learned, since, to stop asking.)

He has to admit it’s an impressive building. It has always towered over the surrounding town, set into the walled perimeter like a beacon on the mesa. Inside it feels cavernous, the vaulted ceiling stretched high above him, and Baze doesn’t think he’s ever been in so tall a room. 

“Striking, isn’t it.” There’s something of a grin on the boy’s lips—knowing, but friendly too. “I’m Chirrut.”

“Baze Malbus.” 

“Well, Baze Malbus, I hope you will consider making an appearance here more often.”

There’s a part of Baze that thinks again _why am I doing this_ , as it has for the past ten minutes, but inside the Temple the voice becomes muted, easier to ignore. 

“I’m not really the spiritual type,” he says. 

“No such thing. All is as the Force wills it, whether you choose to believe in it or not.” 

His conviction is genuine, and Baze doesn’t have the heart to argue with it. 

“Where is everyone?” he asks instead. 

Chirrut twirls his staff idly between his fingers, considering. “Morning prayer, I expect, unless the time is later than I thought.”

“What about you?” 

“They won’t notice if I’ve slipped out for a few minutes.”

Baze gives a doubtful snort.

“Okay,” Chirrut admits, “they will notice. But you’re here now, so I have an excuse.” 

Baze almost raises an eyebrow, and then realizes that of course the other boy won’t be able to see it. 

“I would have thought using others was against your beliefs,” he says. 

“I’m not _using_ you, I’m introducing you to the Temple.” And before he can protest, Chirrut grabs his arm and tugs him up a flight of winding stairs. When they reach the top his head is spinning, but Chirrut gives him a little push and he stumbles out onto a stone balcony. 

Whatever breath he’s managed to recover is knocked out of him. 

Spread out before him is the entirety of Jedha City. The rooftops seem to shimmer as they rise out of the desert, polished metal and worn clay and hard-packed sand alike, nestled between a network archways and narrow alleys. It all looks so intricate from above. 

“Magnificent,” says Chirrut, after the silence has extended for what is probably an abnormally long amount of time. “Supposedly.”

“Too magnificent to justify you monks hogging it to yourselves,” says Baze, when he recovers his voice. 

“We’re a public monument, you know. Besides, I’ve never seen it.” Chirrut laughs, but there’s a catch in the shadow of his words. “They say it’s the best view to be found in the Holy City, at least from the ground.”

“It must be.” Baze pauses a moment. “Do you want to know what it feels like? I know it can’t really compare, but—

“Yes,” says Chirrut. “I would.” 

He’s scrawny enough that Baze can pick him up, without warning, and spin him around, right there on the balcony, until Chirrut is laughing in earnest and Baze is laughing with him. 

“You’re going to drop me.”

“I will if you keep complaining.” 

“No fair.” Chirrut bumps him with his staff. “You’re the one who offered, you can’t withdraw your hospitality now.” 

In the end Baze does drop him, but only because Chirrut intentionally trips him up, and neither of them really mind. Baze extends a hand and Chirrut pulls himself up. 

“It’s like that,” Baze says.

\----

When he gets back to the apartment, his mother is waiting near the entryway. 

“Where have you been?” she asks.

“At the market, looking for work.”

“And did you find any?”

He doesn’t answer, which reads as a _no_ , and she hands him a bowl of supper.

“I made some extra money this time,” she says. “You don’t need to worry so much.”

Not needing to worry and not worrying are different things, of course, and she knows it. And worry makes a good excuse—he finds himself at the market by the Temple less than a week later, and sure enough, Chirrut is there, lounging in the shadow of an archway. 

“Baze Malbus,” he says, “if I’ve guessed correctly.” 

“You’re uncanny.”

“Just very practiced.” But Chirrut grins at him. 

They weave between the stalls together, dodging passersby and particularly aggressive hawkers, until they come to the Temple gate. Without speaking Chirrut pushes it open, and Baze follows him. 

Nothing really grows on Jedha, and inside the Temple bounds is no exception, but Baze notices a tree in the corner of the courtyard, withered and stunted but alive, at least for the moment. They sit beneath its wizened branches. 

“So,” Chirrut says. “You came back.” 

“I did.”

“I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

“I hope you’re not planning on dropping me off any balconies this time.”

“I did not drop you _off_ a balcony, I dropped you _on_ one,” Baze sniffs. “And only because you tripped me.”

“I can’t deny that,” says Chirrut, grinning. “The Guardians would want me to be truthful.” 

“Aren’t you a Guardian?”

“Not yet. I have two years left in my training, and then it’s official.”

“What do you do, to train?”

“We’re warriors,” says Chirrut, “so there are a lot of combat drills. But we study the ways of the Force, and attend morning and evening prayer. There’s a fair amount of meditation too.” 

Baze tips his head back to stare at the pieces of sky behind the tree’s latticework. “Doesn’t sound so bad.” 

“And you?” Chirrut asks. “What is it you do?” 

“I left school a year ago. Now I mostly work odd jobs.”

“Are you on your own, or…”

“I have a younger sister. A mother too, but she’s away a lot.” 

They are quiet for a time. 

“I think I would like to come and meditate with you,” says Baze. “If it’s allowed.”

“Of course,” says Chirrut, standing. “We can go right now.”

“I didn’t mean—it’s just, I’ve never done it before.”

“I can teach you.”

And that’s how Baze finds himself inside the Temple walls once again. This time, Chirrut doesn’t lead him up the flight of stairs, but into a small side chamber. The ceiling is much lower than in the grand entryway. The floor is completely covered with thin, grass-woven mats, and there are no windows, lending an atmosphere that is dark but not unpleasant. Chirrut sits with his legs crossed, and directs Baze to do the same. 

“And now?”

“Now you empty your mind.”

“How am I supposed to—

“It generally helps if you’re quiet.” 

He feels silly, sitting silently in a dingy room and trying not to think. He closes his eyes, wondering if it will help, but it only makes his thoughts seem louder, so he sneaks a peak at Chirrut. The other boy is calm, completely still, back straight and head held aloft. As silly as the exercise seems, it’s clearly working for him. Baze resolves to try harder. 

He doesn’t really manage it that time, but he comes back a few days later to try again, and again. Chirrut begins to show him other things, like the archive and the prayer room and the traditional warrior-monk fighting stance. 

“Like this?” Baze asks, feet parted at an awkward angle, arms at the ready. 

Chirrut runs his staff along the ground to judge his positioning, puts a hand to his spine and shoulders to correct his posture. 

“Almost,” he says. “Try now.” 

As much as he learns about the ways of the Temple and those who guard it, Baze learns even more about Chirrut. He learns that in spite of his young age, Chirrut is the most of many things amongst the Guardians—the most devout, the most adept with the staff, the most prone to rash behavior. One day when Baze visits he’s torn up in bruises and scrapes, and when he vows to exact vengeance upon the cause of the injuries Chirrut only grins (a little lopsided, his lip is split) and says “you should see the other guy.” ( _No really_ , he says later. _You should see him. I want to know what condition he’s in after our fight._ )

Baze himself has been criticized on multiple occasions for being hotheaded, but it is even-tempered Chirrut who ends up getting into trouble the most often, out of the two of them. 

“You take too many risks,” Baze informs him, when they’re seventeen and sparring together in the courtyard. The Guardians have approved him to be trained in their style of combat, and Baze isn’t sure if any of it’s really for him, but the practice can’t hurt. 

“Justice has no regard for personal safety,” Chirrut counters, with an accompanying jab toward him. Baze only barely ducks out of the way in time. 

“That doesn’t mean you need to go after every crook in the city all by yourself.”

“All is as the Force wills it.” Suddenly Chirrut is on top of him, staff pressed against his throat. He’s lost. “And I’m not alone anymore, am I? I have you now.” 

“That’s beside the point,” Baze grumbles, but he drops the subject. Chirrut really doesn’t go after _every_ crook in the city, but he might well start if he thinks Baze is going to be there to haul him back out again.

It’s late when he gets home that night, and when he tiptoes into his room he assumes everyone is asleep. Then his little sister’s fist finds him in the dark and punches him in the shoulder. 

“I know you sneak off to the Temple of the Whills most days,” she whispers. “I know you think I don’t notice.”

“I knew you’d figure it out eventually,” he says. “You’re too clever for me.”

“So what is it that keeps calling you back?”

The Force, Chirrut would say, and part of Baze is tempted to give that answer even if he knows it isn’t the whole truth. Instead he shrugs. 

“It’s peaceful there,” he says. 

And his sister makes a sound like she doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t press the matter either. 

\----

When Baze is nineteen and his sister is not yet of age, their mother does not return from one of her jobs. 

“There was an accident,” says the man who shows up outside the door of their apartment that night. He is broad-shouldered and very tall, wearing a thick, heavy coat, like he isn’t used to the cold here.

“You know how it is in her line of work,” he continues. “And you know what this means.”

Baze nods once. 

“As the eldest it is up to you to carry on the family business.” 

Baze thinks of what Chirrut told him, the last time he was at the Temple. _You could join me, if you wanted. Now that I’m officially a monk I can oversee the rites._ (“I’m not wearing the robes,” Baze said, and Chirrut smiled at him, and something wrenched in his chest.) 

The man is still waiting patiently for an answer. 

“When can I start?” Baze says. 

His mother has left him with few scores to settle and even fewer debts. 

“Quite remarkable,” says the man, in the dim bakery cellar on the other side of town, walking him through the necessary induction procedures. “Your mother was always a remarkable woman. And you, Baze Malbus. I believe you will shape up to be quite the remarkable young man.” 

It’s late when he is permitted back home, but his sister is awake and waiting for him when he arrives, a single lamp burning on the table before her—oil, like in the ancient times. 

“We both knew this day would come,” she says. 

“I can still back out,” he tells her. “It won’t be easy, but…it’s an option.”

She shakes her head, but she doesn’t meet his eyes. “You can’t. Your duty is set. But we need a contingency plan, in case you—

_Die, like our mother._

“—in case something happens.”

“Okay,” says Baze. 

“I will be finished with school soon,” his sister says. “And then I can work.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Not here,” he amends. 

The look on her face is almost guilty. 

“You were never meant to stay on this moon,” he says. 

“No,” she agrees. “After I graduate—I would like to leave.”

“I will find the money.”

“And I will abandon you.” She pulls him in for a brief, bone-crushing embrace. “Tell me not to go.”

“But how is my little sister going to become smarter than me if she doesn’t attend one of those fancy government institutes for higher learning?”

“I’m already smarter than you,” she mumbles, but she smiles, just slightly.

Baze meets Chirrut in front of the Temple the next morning, and tells him everything. 

“An assassin,” says Chirrut. “I never would have guessed.”

“Can you still love me?” Baze teases, and Chirrut puts a finger to his lips in mock-hesitation. 

“That depends,” he says. “How am I to cope with the knowledge that my best friend is so cold-hearted?”

“You’ve always known that I’m cold-hearted,” Baze grumbles.

“On the contrary,” says Chirrut, “I’ve always known you aren’t.”

And Baze is glad, suddenly, that Chirrut can’t see the red tinge to his cheeks. 

“Spar with me,” he says.

Chirrut hits him lightly on the shoulder with his staff. “Are you sure? I beat you last time, if I recall correctly.”

“And this time I’m going to beat you.”

“You can try,” says Chirrut, and grins. 

Baze does try. He’s not as skilled with the staff as his companion, and this is his major disadvantage. He has trained with one before, under the watchful eye of a senior Guardian out here in the Temple courtyard, but he has always preferred the feel of a blaster in his hand, steady and sure. But blasters are built for killing, not sparring, so he makes do with what he has. 

It isn’t enough. Chirrut shouldn’t be able to surprise him like this, he thinks huffily from where he’s been knocked to the ground, sprawled across the tiles, Chirrut’s knee digging into his back.

“You know why I always win?” He raps Baze on the head with the tip of his weapon. “It is because I have complete faith in the Force.”

“It’s because I’m distracted,” says Baze, which is true but maybe not the entire reason he lost. Ordinarily Chirrut would make a crack about Baze finding him distracting, but today he is silent. They sit on the Temple steps together, recovering their breath, letting their heartbeats run back down to normal. 

“Your sister,” Chirrut says softly, after a moment of hesitation.

“She deserves to leave.”

“You don’t envy her?”

Baze considers the question. He looks out at the city: cramped, colorful, glistening in the morning sun. He looks at his friend next to him. 

“Why should I?”

\----

After his sister graduates and leaves Jedha for a less remote land of opportunity, Baze moves into the Temple. With Chirrut’s help he completes his training and becomes a fully-fledged Guardian of the Whills. (And without Chirrut’s help, though perhaps with his tacit support, Baze begins to go about evening his scores, restoring the balance as he has been called to do. He imagines the man in the thick overcoat and thinks, _soon_.) 

Living with Chirrut (or not _with_ him, exactly, but in the same space as him) is vastly different from his previous frequent visits. Baze is glad, in a way; he’s always known of Chirrut’s recklessness, but while having daily firsthand exposure to it is alarming, it means he can keep a closer eye on his friend. 

They become a fixture, the two of them together, and it becomes increasingly rare to see them apart. _BazeandChirrut_ are the Temple’s most devoted Guardians, and when the first pack of thieves in years comes to steal the kyber crystals, Baze and Chirrut fend them off until they can be apprehended, to the quiet admiration of their peers. 

“It’s always quiet admiration,” says Chirrut. “Praise is, apparently, against the Jedi way.”

“We aren’t Jedi,” says Baze. 

“True.” Chirrut grins at him, teasing, but there’s something warm and serious on his face. “That’s probably a good thing.”

“Go on.” 

“The non-attachment policy. We’re _attached_ , I believe.” 

“I guess,” Baze says, carefully, but the waver in his voice betrays him. Chirrut, with his damn super-hearing, misses nothing. He grabs Baze’s hand, hesitant in a way he’s never been before. 

“Is that something you mind?”

“It’s something I chose.”

And it is at this moment, thirty years before it happens, that Baze realizes Chirrut’s face will be the last he ever sees. He grips the hand in his tighter, putting it over his heart, and Chirrut turns his head away, but not before Baze sees there are tears in his eyes. 

\----

The thing is, it’s a cold dusty moon in the Mid Rim of the galaxy and news doesn’t usually travel fast. 

The thing is, it takes six days for information about the new Galactic Empire and the purge of the Jedi to reach them.

It’s Chirrut who hears first, because Baze has been out on assignment, one last score to settle, and too preoccupied to pay attention to any of the increasingly urgent transmissions beamed his way. When he arrives back at the Temple Chirrut is waiting in his room. Seated at the edge of the bed, he stands when he hears Baze approach.

“The Clone Wars,” he says, “they’ve finally come to an end.”

“That’s good news,” says Baze, warily, because there is a tension in Chirrut’s limbs and in the lines of his forehead that he hasn’t seen before. 

“They’ve come to an end,” says Chirrut, “because the clones have begun to massacre the knights of the Republic.” 

And before Baze can think he’s pulling Chirrut into a gruff hug. The other man is still shorter than him by half a head, but he’s grown more muscular, far from the scrawny boy he used to be. Neither of them have been boys for a long time. 

“There are rumors,” Chirrut whispers into his shoulder. “Whispers of a Jedi gone rogue, turned to the Dark Side, slaughtering all his companions. I’ve been trying to find out if anyone’s left, but—

His voice breaks, and Baze puts a hand to his cheek. 

“That’s why no Jedi have visited recently.”

It seems like a stupid thing to say, but it’s the first thought that crosses his mind. He’s surprised at how calm his voice sounds. He _feels_ calm, in a strange sort of way, like his head is filled with white noise. _I’m in shock_ , he thinks.

There haven’t been many pilgrims to the Temple in several years now—the Clone Wars have taken their toll in more ways than one. But for the Jedi to be wiped out completely…it’s unthinkable. Impossible, Baze would have said, an age ago. Now he is not so sure. 

“The Order is finished.”

“You don’t know that.”

Chirrut glares at him. 

“Okay, you’re right, it probably is.” _Either way_ , Baze thinks, _we can’t change it._

Chirrut seems to guess the direction of his mind. 

“Our work is not done,” he says. “As long as the Temple stands we must protect it.”

“And will the other Guardians, now that the Jedi are gone?”

Chirrut grips his arm tighter, says nothing. It’s an answer neither of them care to waste too much thought on. They can hope, of course, but even now a dull, persistent voice plagues the back of Baze’s brain. _What use is hope, in times like these?_

It only grows stronger after that, when some of the oldest Guardians undertake a journey to plead for justice before the Imperial senate and are shot down not long after they’ve left atmo. Some of the newer monks get scared at the news, and Baze and Chirrut wake one morning to find half of them gone. There’s talk of killings and worse on other planets, and there’s talk of the Empire’s focus shifting. _They’ll be here next_ , everyone says. 

All is as the Force wills it, Chirrut still insists, even when Baze fires back one of the retorts he used to think was characteristic of the faithless alone. Chirrut stays by his side, in spite of this, and Baze stays by his. 

Times like these, he thinks, the Force can’t be trusted. They have to rely on each other instead.

\----

Jedha is not a war zone, not at first. 

“It is only a matter of time,” says Chirrut. Baze can only nod. 

“And when they come, we’ll be ready.”

_How could we be?_ Baze thinks. How can any of them truly be ready? But Chirrut has that determined frown on, the one that’s become achingly familiar over their years together, and Baze knows better than to argue. 

He knows better than to try to contact his sister, who graduated from her fancy government institute some twelve years past to become a political secretary on Coruscant. Sometimes it is better for him to believe her dead. Sometimes it is better for him not to think of her at all. 

(Later, much later, when he meets Jyn Erso, he sees something of his sister in her eyes and tries to pretend he doesn’t, but that time is not yet upon him.) 

The war reaches Jedha when the Empire decides that kyber crystals are more than mere relics of the Jedi religion. More valuable, at least. An incursion like this is what the monks at the Temple have trained long and hard to prevent, but the Temple is rapidly falling into disrepair and there are few left with the strength to stop it.

Chirrut remains, and because of him Baze stays also. 

“Think we can take them?” Chirrut asks, staff poised and at the ready. “How many are there, thirty-eight?”

Baze looks out at the stormtroopers amassed before the Temple gates. 

“Thirty-nine,” he grunts.

“Such an odd number.” Chirrut clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “I suppose we should get started.” 

Baze cocks his blaster in response. 

The stormtroopers, true to their reputation, are not skilled fighters, but they are numerous, and this is where they have the upper hand. They seem to be bringing in reinforcements, because no matter how many of them Baze and Chirrut cut down, there are always more. At some point they realize they are overwhelmed—but they were from the start, weren’t they?—and neither of them mentions it. It is the duty of the Guardians to defend the Temple to their last breath, no matter the odds, and so it must be. 

They do not die that day. It takes them both by surprise, that they are not simply executed for their transgressions, but as the Empire’s underlings thunder up the steps and smash through the entryway Baze grabs Chirrut’s hand, tugging him into a back alley. 

“What are you _doing_?” he hisses. 

“If we make it out now we can live to keep fighting.”

“Bold words, coming from an assassin.”

But Baze hasn’t been an assassin for years now, and for once it is Chirrut following him. They go, and the Temple’s last line of defense goes with them.

Most of Baze’s hope goes, too, but he doesn’t tell Chirrut, because Chirrut still believes. Baze derides him for it, but privately he can’t help admiring his friend’s faith. For him it has never come so easily, but for Chirrut it’s as natural as breathing. He could find hope again in that, Baze thinks, given enough time. 

With the Temple overrun, the only home Chirrut has ever known, they return to the flat from Baze’s childhood. It’s been more than two decades since he saw it last, but it’s eerie how little has changed. The previous owners hadn’t touched much, and disturbed even less when they fled for territories as of yet untouched by the fighting. Baze wonders absently if they made it. He thinks it might be better for them if they didn’t. No one is safe, not anymore, not while the Imperial flag reigns across the galaxy. 

The biggest difference is that he can no longer hear the call to prayer every morning, the monks all killed or on the run or in hiding, like them. The silence that has descended over the city, broken only by brief, explosive firefights, is unsettling. 

Instead of sounds from the Temple, Baze wakes to Chirrut next to him, and sometimes it is almost enough. 

To get by he takes up his old business, but this time he’s freelance and he tries to pick only the jobs that seem necessary. It’s a relative term, necessary, but if it means he can sleep a few nights out of the week he isn’t going to examine it too closely. 

Chirrut, for his part, goes every day to one of the marketplaces as an itinerant preacher of the Force. When he’s not working Baze accompanies him, watching from the shadow of an archway or an overhanging building, there to ensure his friend doesn’t get into any trouble—or start it himself. 

“It’s not too late to get off this moon,” he says one night as he walks in, returning from another weeklong business operation. He throws the credits on the table. Behind it, Chirrut is at the stove, making another attempt at a traditional Jedha stew. 

“Close the door behind you.” 

Baze complies. “They almost wouldn’t let me back off the planet this time. The occupation’s reach is growing.”

Chirrut plops a bowl in front of him. 

“If we leave,” he says, “we’ll miss the fun of interfering with their plans.”

Baze snorts. “Some fun.”

They eat together. Chirrut is getting better at cooking, but he still adds too many spices for Baze’s taste. He claims they smell nice and that it makes the whole endeavor more interesting. 

Afterwards, as they’re clearing their dishes, Chirrut brushes against Baze’s shoulder softly. 

“Do you really want to go?”

“It’d be easier if we did. We could flee to the Outer Rim, live the rest of our lives in some corner of the galaxy no one’s ever heard of. What do you think? Would I make a good moisture farmer?”

“No.” Chirrut’s lips twitch into a half-smile. “And you wouldn’t like Tatooine, anyway.”

“But it’s a desert, same as here.”

“It’s a _hot_ desert. Completely different.”

“Is that so?” And now Baze is smiling too. “Then I suppose we should just give up.” 

“Yes,” Chirrut agrees. “Surrender to staying in NiJedha forever.”

“As long as you’re here.”

And they’ve known each other for more than thirty years now, but it still pleases Baze more than it should that he can make Chirrut’s cheeks go red, even after so long. 

“Of course,” he says, and ducks his head. Baze ruffles his hair. 

Through the window, he can see the sun descending to touch what remains of the skyline. So many of the roofs he once admired have fallen in now, the result of the war or old age or some combination of the two. In the distance the Temple looms, overshadowed by the Imperial vessel suspended overhead. 

They will never leave, Baze knows, no matter how bad the fighting gets. It’s their fight as much as anyone else’s. Their duty is not yet complete. 

Watching the sunset, Chirrut standing calm and reassuring next to him, the pounding in his veins quiets for just a moment, and Baze can’t find it in him to resent being trapped here. 

It’s still his city, after all.


End file.
